Maybe I would take a closer look as to where, exactly, Google puts the pin when you tell it to go to a town. If I tell Google Maps I want to walk to the village I am currently living in, it puts the pin in a random spot sort of in the middle of the village. (It happens to be in a parking lot by a bakery, so now I am hungry).

So, you may be measuring it with regard to when you reach the town limits on that road, but Google may be putting the pin in some oddball place, off the road you are biking down.